A Thousand Years or More Ago
by Neverend
Summary: The story of the four founders of Hogwarts, beggining with Rowena Ravenclaw.
1. The Sorcerer's Daughter

John stumbled through the darkening woods. Why was he doing this? Why had he given in and agreed to help Thomas with this insane plan? "Thomas!" he called out. "Where are you?"   
  
A tall boy erupted from the underbrush. "Shut up, you idiot. Do you want the sorcerer to get us?"  
  
John looked down, abashed. "I don't, but can we hurry? Please? We've got to be back at the village by dawn."   
  
"In a minute. We're just getting to get to the part of the woods where the sorcerer lives."  
  
"How do you know where he is? No one's ever seen him."   
  
"Well this is the part of the woods we've always been told not to go into, isn't it? Seems pretty obvious. Anyway, people on the southern side of the village always have more misfortune."  
  
"Really?" asked John. "I've never noticed that."  
  
Thomas rolled his eyes. "You must be pretty dumb then. Jack Miller's calf died just a week ago, and the Threshers' garden never gives anything but tiny vegetables. Come on, once we find him we can bring everybody into the forest to kill him. We'll be heroes! And I'm sure that Mary Thresher will be very grateful if you save her mother's garden."   
  
John was still unconvinced, but followed the other boy in silence. The woods were completely dark now. If it weren't for the few feeble slips of moonlight that broke through the thick canopy, they would have ran into a great many trees. Eventually, Thomas stopped short in his tracks and held out a hand to stop his friend. "Do you hear that?"  
  
"Hear what?"  
  
"That... that singing."  
  
John cocked his head, and, sure enough, a beautiful female voice was coming from somewhere to their left. "Yeah, I hear it now."  
  
"Well, come on."  
  
Only a moments travel later and a golden light could be seen shining steadily through the trees. The two boys gave each other a knowing look and began to edge toward it. Slowly, they emerged from the woods. Before them was a lush garden overrun with strange plants. At the back of the garden, against the backdrop of huge and ancient trees, was a tall, slender tower. The source of the light was a glowing, golden orb that hung above the head of a softly singing girl.  
  
John stared at the mysterious girl with widened eyes. He had been used to considering Mary Thresher as the ultimate of feminine beauty, but this girl before them made Mary seem plain. She had waving, night-black hair that hung down her back like a shadowed waterfall. Her skin was pale and smooth, her face fine and pointed and possessing a wild, adventurous beauty. Huge, almond shaped eyes of a truly unique violet color were fixed upon the page of a large book. That in itself was strange enough. John and Thomas had gone their entire lives without ever seeing a book.  
  
Suddenly she stopped singing and looked up at them. A small, radiant smile spread across her face. "Why hello," she said, her speaking voice almost as beautiful as her singing, "what are you young Muggles doing here?"  
  
Thomas made a choking sound and shoved at John's shoulder, but otherwise the two boys stayed still and silent.  
  
The girl stood up. Her clothing, beautiful blue silk robes, rustled as she moved. "It' okay, you don't have to tell me," she continued. "I already know. You're here to see Father." She sighed and moved closer until her stunning face was only a few inches away from Thomas's. "Poor, dim-witted Muggles. Every few years someone will come looking for the evil sorcerer so that they can be heroes. I almost feel sorry for you."  
  
She pulled away and reached into her robes. "Oh well," she said, drawing out a long piece of dark wood. "Obliviate" she whispered. Suddenly, vacant smiles appeared on the faces of the two would-be heroes.  
  
"Now it's time to send you home," said the girl. "Don't worry, you'll wake up safe and sound in your beds in the morning."  
  
"That's nice," said Thomas wistfully.  
  
Rowena closed the door behind her and called, "Father!"  
  
There was no answer. She did not expect one. Whenever her father was enveloped in his work he was deaf and blind to the world outside the study. Rowena could still remember the noisy centaur battle that had raged outside the tower a few years ago, while her father remained bent obliviously over his books.  
  
She lifted up the edge of her robe and swept up the winding stairs. "Father," she said again, knocking on the door. Still no answer. Entering, she saw her father, a tall man with a pointed, steel-grey beard, sitting in front of a table and writing. The parchment he was scribbling on was so large, it flowed off the end of the table and puddled on the ground. Around him were bookshelves. The walls of the room were completely covered in books, without a break for windows. The domed ceiling was also coated in curved shelves that held their tomes firmly against gravity's pull. Rowena swung the door shut behind her, revealing that it too had bookshelves on it's back.  
  
The young girl took out her wand and whispered a gentle word, then brought it sharply down to a point in the air directly in front of her waist. There was a very loud, clanging sound as if the wand had hit a gong.  
  
The man looked up. "Rowena, what are you doing here? You know I do not liked to be disturbed."  
  
"Another pair of Muggles from the village showed up. I thought you might like to know."  
  
"Oh, did they?" he bent over his parchment again. "You erased their memory, I trust."  
  
"Of course." She waited for a moment. "Father," she asked hesitantly, "why are Muggles so stupid?"  
  
The wizard sighed and set down his quill. "It's not only Muggles that are foolish, daughter. There are plenty of foolish wizards and witches as well. It comes from ignorance. They were taught, if they were taught at all, by stupid and ignorant people, so how can we expect them to rise above the level of their teachers?"  
  
"I wish," she said after a moment, "that I could educate them. All of them, but magical people especially. I'd take the ones that were most intelligent, and I'd teach them, like you taught me."  
  
"Why would you want to do that?" asked her father.  
  
"There's a painful lack of knowledge in this world father. I think the best thing anyone can do is add to the knowledge we do have."  
  
The man shook his head. "Whatever you say, Rowena of mine. Now leave me be, I'm in the middle of a thesis."   
  
"Yes father."   
  
Before she left, though, Rowena walked to a certain section in the corner of the study and took out several books. Then she summoned down two scrolls from their nook on the ceiling.  
  
Later, she sat on her beaded coverlet and examined them. The books were thin volumes on basic spells, the kind that could be taught to children, and the scrolls were maps.  
  
Many months passed, but Rowena could not seem to forget the two Muggles and the thoughts they had aroused in her. Winter came with a flurry of soft flakes that blanketed the garden and the forest beyond in a glittering coat of white. Rowena liked to take walks out in the snow, wrapped warmly in a fur-lined cloak. Often she would take a book, carefully bewitched to protect it from being damaged by the snow, and read beneath a tall, old pine.   
  
One day she sat reading a very interesting book on dragons. Suddenly, she was jerked from her reading by a bird's shriek.   
  
She snapped the book shut and slipped it into a pocket of her robes, even as she climbed to her feet and hurried toward the sound.  
  
She found the bird in a circle of slowly reddening snow. It was an eagle, with an arrow sprouting from it's shoulder. Rowena kneeled down to examine it. There was still life in it, a wavering shred, and it made a feeble sound.   
  
Rowena carefully pulled out the arrow, then performed the only healing spell she knew, the one to slow bleeding. The flow of blood lessened but did not stop. She removed her cloak and immediately shivered as the cold wind reached her shoulders, but she did not replace it. Instead she wrapped the eagle in it's soft, fur-lined folds and cradled the bird in her arms. With painful slowness she got to her feet and made her way toward the tower.  
  
Once inside, Rowena found a basket in which she placed bird and cloak, and left them in the kitchen.  
  
She climbed up to the study and swept open the door. After getting her father's attention with the gong spell, she asked, "Father, where are the healing books?"   
  
The bearded man looked up only long enough to point towards a very low shelf behind him before immersing himself in his reading again. Rowena passed the great, glowing brazier that warmed the study in wintertime and hunkered down next to the shelf he had pointed to. There were eight books there. Two books on magical healing in general, three on healing spells, two on healing potions and herbs, and even one book on ordinary Muggle medicine. Rowena took them all downstairs, praying that the eagle had not died while she was in the study.  
  
Once down in the kitchen, she removed the bird from its basket and cradled it in her lap. The girl quickly looked through the books. Finally she was able to find a spell to make the wound disappear, and after four tries it worked, though it left a bold white scar and the eagle was still very weak and obviously still in pain. She cleaned the sticky, red blood from it's feathers, realizing as she did that it was male.  
  
"Well, my little patient," she crooned, "I suppose that I must give you a name." Rowena thought for a moment. " How about Arrow," she stated at last, "that way we will always remember that you and I conquered the arrow together."  
  
Arrow did not object to his new name, and Rowena opened the healing book again, this time not looking for anything in particular, merely wanting to learn.  
  
Spring came. Arrow had become a healthy and very handsome young bird. His feathers were a lovely mixture of tawny gold and reddish brown, except for his breast, which was creamy.  
  
When Rowena's father saw the eagle perched upon his daughter's shoulder, his eyebrows raised and he said, "Remember that it will not stay with you. Eagles are wild, and it will fly away."   
  
But Arrow did not fly away. He slept in a basket beside Rowena's bed and spent the days either on her shoulder or somewhere near her, though he would occasionally take long flights through the blue spring sky.   
  
"I don't why he stays here," the man told his daughter, "you must have mixed magic into him. It would explain why that bird seems so intelligent sometimes. I can almost swear he understands what I'm saying. An interesting possibility. I shall have to read up on it."  
  
The girl spent much of her time reading and rereading the eight healing books. She was fascinated by what they contained, and whenever she stumbled upon a wounded animal she was able to heal it immediately. Once she even found a Muggle child with her leg caught beneath a tree. Rowena spelled away the break, erased the child's memory, and sent her on her way.  
  
Though occupied with the healer's art, she did not forget her first interest, that of uneducated young witches and wizards. In fact she began to think of them more and more. There were hundreds of them, she knew, in the country. Some would be incapable of casting a single spell or brewing a single potion. Many were born of Muggle parents, and had no idea what they were or why odd things happened around them.  
  
One balmy day in mid-spring, she came to a decision.  
  
"Accio Book," she yelled, and the book her father had been bowed over zoomed from beneath his nose into her waiting hands.  
  
"Rowena!" he said sharply, looking up, "What is the meaning of this?"  
  
"I've come to a decision Father, a very important one that you should know about."  
  
"Tell me later, daughter, at the moment I am very close to finding..."   
  
"No Father," she said, moving away as he reached for the book in her hands. "I need to tell you this now."  
  
He dropped his hands. "What is this very important decision, daughter?"  
  
"I'm leaving," Rowena said. "It's time. I'm older now, I need to do things. I need to meet people. Magical people. Young magical people. And I want to seek out children who don't know how to use their power and teach them. I'm sure there are some very intelligent young wizards and witches out there who need guidance and education. I'm not sure how I'll do it yet. Maybe someday I'll start a school. I don't know. I just know I need to leave."  
  
Her father drew nearer to her and looked her straight in the eye. "Are you sure about this?"  
  
"Very sure."   
  
"In that case, good luck my daughter. Always remember that logic and knowledge can solve anything. Remember also that you are a Ravenclaw, daughter of Ronan Ravenclaw, and be proud in that."  
  
"Is that all?" asked Rowena. "Do I just... leave now?"  
  
Ronan nodded. "You are smart Rowena, and powerful, and you have Arrow to protect you." He gestured toward the eagle, who at the moment was perched on the back of a tall chair. "You will make your way well in the world, I am sure of it."   
  
Rowena's eyes were shining, and a single tear escaped to run down her cheek. "Thank you, Father. Thank you for everything."  
  
With that she turned, and left. 


	2. What Serpents Say

Salazar walked into the room with a long, green snake wound around his shoulders.  
  
"Mother," he said in a hard voice, "Nazzi says you threw away your tonic."  
  
The woman propped up on the couch turned her head and smiled weakly.  
  
"Ah, little snake, have you been spying on me?"  
  
She was still beautiful, for all that her dark hair hung in limp straggles around a face as hallowed and pale as death.  
  
Her son moved further into the room and placed the snake on the table beside the bed. "I have to make sure you drink your potion. How else will you get well? How will you regain your magic?"   
  
Salazar murmured something beneath his breath and waved one hand. In it appeared a crystal goblet filled with a golden-brown liquid. "Here." He knelt beside the couch and began to lift the goblet to her lips.   
  
"No son," she said, "I can lift my own glass."  
  
One white hand unclenched from her blanket and slowly rose to take the potion. The goblet wavered as she held it, but, not without a grimace first, she gulped down the tawny drink. Once it was empty, she set the chalice down on the table. Unable to summon the strength to lift itself up, her hand lay on the table by the drained goblet. It's fingers curled slightly, and it looked especially pale against the dark wood, like a white flower that had not fully opened. The serpent slithered over to her wrist and laid itself over her arm.  
  
Salazar stared out the wide window. The land outside was a dreary looking marsh, with slim, dark trees sticking straight up from low, brownish water and sodden grasses. "Mother," he said, "you know that I could charm this window for you. Would you like to look at mountains, maybe? I know you grew up in mountains. Or maybe a jungle? Or hills? I can have it show anything you like."  
  
"No, Salazar. I like the fen. It's peaceful." She looked down at the snake, still draped across the hem of her sleeve. "Anyway, you and your father both grew up here, as did generations of wizards before him. He told me once that it was in this very house that his great, great, great, great grandfather first learned to talk to them. The serpents I mean. This land has seen many great wizards and witches in it's day." The mother looked away from the snake and up at her son. "Be proud that you live here, my son. Be proud of your ancestors. Your ancestry is your strength."  
  
  
  
  
  
It was raining on the fen. The heavy clouds and heavier sheets of water hid what little light there might have been shining from moon and stars. Salazar was in the small stone room he called the potion room.   
  
A table along the wall was scattered with a variety of things. Powders spilled from leather pouches and dried plants lay alongside various animal parts. There were vials full of liquids lying haphazardly over it, some empty from having spilled onto the wood.  
  
The young man was bent over a cauldron. It was very old and very ornate, with gilt snakes wound about the rim. The potion within it was a clear, ruby red. Up through it rose golden bubbles that would rise out of the liquid before breaking with a flash a few inches above the cauldron. Salazar was stirring the cauldron while looking at a scroll rolled out on the table. The scroll too was ancient and very valuable, but Salazar did not care about that. He let droplets from the cauldron fall on and stain it, and he often tore it as he picked it up to closer study it's ornate writing.  
  
The wizard took out his dark wand and tapped the end of the long spoon, so that it continued to stir the potion as he turned to the table. There was a round, leathery blue vegetable lying beside a bowl of dragon blood. A tap from his wand and a lick of flame turned the blue vegetable into ash. He scooped it into silver measuring cups, and when he had exactly the right amount he turned and threw the ash into the cauldron.   
  
Immediately the golden bubbles within multiplied a hundred times, then burst, leaving nothing behind but a reddish-black residue on the sides of the cauldron.  
  
Salazar screamed with rage. He snatched up the scroll, tore it in two and threw it on the fire. A single shred of parchment floated up from the flames and landed on the stone floor, it's edges glowing red. Of the words on it, only one was clear: "remedy".  
  
"Wassste," hissed Nazzi, from where she lay coiled beneath the table.  
  
"That potion was a waste," he replied in the same, hissing language.  
  
With a quick spell the young wizard doused the fire beneath the cauldron, and with a second he cleaned the residue from its pewter sides. As he turned to leave the potion room, a knock sounded, magically amplified to be heard throughout the building, even over the drumming of the rain overhead.  
  
"Sssomeone'sss here," Nazzi hissed.   
  
Salazar picked up Nazzi and draped her over one shoulder, than hurried down the stone staircase to the front hall. The door swung open to reveal a young girl. She barged past him into the hall and stood in front of him, gasping.   
  
The young wizard stepped back, startled by this girl who had almost knocked him over. He looked closer and started again. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The face that stared out at him through wet strands of hair and smears of dirt could have belonged to a nymph, a veela, an angel.  
  
But she was none of these things, for she said, "Please sir! Please, help me!" Her voice was frantic and hurried. "My carriage went off the road in the rain. It landed on the... on the rocks, and the driver and one of the horses is d-dead. I rode the other horse for a while, b-but then we came to this marsh and it was stuck and I think it's leg is broken. I followed the lights to here. You have to help me! Please?"   
  
Collecting his wits at last, Salazar moved toward her and tried to be soothing. "Of course I'll help you. Calm down. Stop crying. I'll help you."  
  
It seemed to be working. The girl quieted down, and then screamed and threw herself back against the wall.  
  
She had seen Nazzi.  
  
Salazar hastened to lift the snake off his shoulders and drop her in a far corner. Nazzi slithered into the shadows, her emerald curves fading into the darkness.  
  
"A s-s-serp-pent," the girl was stammering.  
  
"Don't worry abourt Nazzi. She's just a pet."  
  
"A... pet?"  
  
The young man nodded. "Yes, a pet. Come with me now and I'll get you food and some dry clothes." He held out his hand to her. "Come."  
  
She took Salazar's hand and allowed him to lead her away. He was staring at her, she was staring away from him, and so quietly that he could not hear her, she whispered, "Only the devil keeps serpents as pets."  
  
When the rain finally ceased a little after dawn, Salazar took his broom and flew far out over the fen. Soon he found the horse. The poor beast was on it's side, firmly embedded in the mud.   
  
With the help of a little magic he was able to drag it out of the marshy ground and pull it back to the house behind broom. There was a stable there. It had once housed Sombrarius Slytherin's prized flying horses but now it was empty. After dusting out the small building with a sweep of his wand, he cleaned and dried the horse, then conjured food in the trough and bandages around it's leg, which was simply twisted rather than broken.  
  
Back in the house he was passing the bottom of the staircase when a light, angelic voice asked, "Where have you been?"  
  
Salazar blushed and looked up at the girl standing on the stairs. Amanda, that was the name she had told him. Now that her hair was dry it had lightened to pale blonde. In his mother's old robes, she almost looked like a witch.  
  
"Um.." He looked down at himself. When cleaning off the horse, he hadn't bothered to clean himself. His robes were sodden and mud-splattered, and he smelled of horse. He murmured under his breath and the smell evaporated. "I've been in the marsh. I found your horse. It's leg is broken, so you won't be able to leave for a while. "   
  
"But I must get back to my father's land! They'll be worrying about me. You must have some way to take me back."  
  
Salazar looked into her eyes. They were very large and very hazel. Beautiful Muggle maiden. "No," he replied. "Let me get cleaned up and then come and eat breakfast with me."  
  
The morning meal was wonderful. In the years alone with his mother, he had become an accomplished chef. Once he thought he glimpsed Amanda peering in the door as he levitated some eggs over to himself, and they fell and broke. However, the glimpse was immediately gone, and she didn't mention anything about it, so he assumed he had imagined it.  
  
He found that she was as beautiful on the inside as the out. She was the daughter of a baron. From what she told him her family was very kind to their servants and subjects, unlike most more powerful Muggles. She told him that she liked to ride on sunny days and read on gloomy ones. By the time they were finished eating, Salazar was completely and hopelessly in love.   
  
Upstairs and alone he threw himself on the bed and sighed a warm and contented sigh.  
  
"No trussst," hissed Nazzi.  
  
"Quiet, reptile," he said in English.  
  
  
  
"Mother this is Amanda. I told you a few days ago that she's staying here until her horse's leg heals. Remember?"  
  
"Of course I remember what you said my son." The invalid rolled her gaunt head rolled slightly on its cushion to stare at Amanda. "I hope you enjoy your stay here, girl."   
  
Amanda left the room very quickly. Salazar's mother seemed to unnerve her.   
  
"She's very beautiful Salazar. Beautiful indeed." With painful slowness she reached out her hand and grasped the front of her son's robes. "Do not fall in love with her, my son. Our two kinds do not mix."  
  
From beneath the couch, where she would not frighten Amanda, Nazzi hissed, "Too late."  
  
In serpent's tongue, Salazar hissed back. "I thought I told you to be silent."  
  
"What did she say?" asked the woman.  
  
"Nothing of importance." He paused. "Mother, I'm leaving you here for a day or two. A wizard in China has discovered an ingredient that might cure you. You'll be casting spells again in no time."   
  
"Couldn't you take her back to her home first?"   
  
Salazar shook his head. "I'd have to take her on the broom, and to do that I'd have to put her to sleep, and then erase her memory. I don't want to do that. She probably will stay out of here anyway. I've lifted all the Muggle traps in the building, so she won't electrocute herself or something while I'm gone. I'll see you soon, Mother, with the cure."   
  
He thought he heard footsteps scurrying away from the door just before he left the room, but when he opened it, the hall was empty. Before leaving, he went down to the stable to check on the horse. It's sprain had completely healed. Salazar waved his wand and the bandages disappeared. After a moment of staring at the bare leg, he waved it again in the opposite direction. The bandages reappeared. Then he lifted the wand, and Disapparated with a crack.  
  
  
  
There was a crack, and Salazar appeared in the hallway outside his mother's room. In his hand was cradled a bottle of red powder. "Mother, I've got it!" he cried, throwing open the door, "and I have a feeling that..."  
  
The bottle dropped from his hands and shattered on the floor. The room was devastated. The couch was on it's side, it's cushions having been slashed open and the feathers inside pulled out. Only shards of glass clung to the empty window frame. Looking outside he could see the remains of the table someone had thrown through it.   
  
Salazar began to run through the building. The kitchen was smashed, the library burning, the potion room was empty, the cauldron having been stolen and the various ingredients thrown into the fire in the library. There was no sign of his mother, Amanda, or Nazzi. The horse was also gone from the stable. Whoever had wrecked the house must have done something to them.  
  
He rushed outside and spied a small snake lying in the grasses. He dropped to his knees and picked it up in his hands. "What happened here?"   
  
"Girl on horssse. Left, then came with thunder."  
  
"Thunder?"  
  
"In ground. Thunder in ground. Ssso many of them, with fire in their handsss. Feet made thunder."  
  
It took Salazar a moment to realize the terrible, terrible thing the serpent had said.  
  
"What did they do to my mother? Tell me now!"  
  
"Fire," hissed the snake, "fire," and without another word it slithered away into the grass.  
  
The young man crumpled onto the marshy ground. His body wrenched with tears. The girl he loved had betrayed him, destroyed his home, killed his mother. Even after his sobs quieted he continued to lay on the ground. It began to rain, gently at first then harder. Still he lay, and fell asleep beneath the torrent.  
  
Later on, Salazar finally found Nazzi in a dark corner. She had been cut in half. 


End file.
